1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a holder for holding multiple types of advertisement materials for display to potential clients.
2. Background of the Prior Art
Advertisement is the lifeblood of any business, especially small businesses. One challenge for the business owner is how to effectively advertise the business while maintaining a reasonable budget for the advertisement. Print media as well as radio and television advertisement can offer a business needed exposure, however, such advertising methods tend to be relatively expensive, especially in light of the fact that for such methods to be very effective, a sustained advertising campaign is needed.
Another effective advertising method that tends to be less expensive than print and electronic media involves the use of signs and billboards of various styles. For example, a business may have its name and/or logo placed on the side of a bus, on the side boards during a hockey game, or on a wall within a stadium during a football game. This gives the business exposure to prospective clients. However, such advertising methods are static in that after the prospective client ceases to see the business advertisement, the client tends to forget the about the business and thus the need to contact the business. Accordingly, such advertising methods are best suited for the strategy of name recognition development as opposed to a direct solicitation of clients. In the long run, name recognition pays dividends, however, a business needs short term results, especially a startup business where cash flow tends to be at a premium.
An effective advertisement strategy is to place some item bearing the business name thereon with the prospective client. For example, a business may hand out some form of novelty items, such as pens, key chains, etc., at a trade show, the novelty items remaining with the prospective client after initial contact with the client. This method works well in some business segments, such as many business to business operations. However, many businesses are not well suited for client development via a trade show.
Dry cleaners, restaurants, and insurance agencies are all examples of businesses that do not look to trade shows for prospective client contact. These types of businesses rely on more traditional methods of placing advertisements, such as a brochure or a business card, into the hands of a prospective client, such that the client has the advertisement for subsequent memory refreshment and hopefully contact with the advertising business. One method of placement of the advertisement into the hands of the prospective client is via direct mail, either stand alone or bundled with other advertisers in a mail packet. While this method is tried and true, it tends to be very expensive relative to the results achieved.
Another method is to place business cards and brochures at strategic areas that may be frequented by prospective clients in order to allow such clients to retrieve the brochure or business card. In such a method, the prospective client has advertisement material from the business, which material may be seen by the client days or even weeks later, reminding the client of the need to contact the business. The challenge with this advertisement method is to grab the attention of the prospective client in the first place so that the client develops the desire to retrieve the advertisement of the business from the display area.
Many prior art devices have been proposed that allow the distribution of advertising materials to a prospective business while providing sufficient stimulus to attract the attention of the client to the presence of the material. Such prior art devices, which work with varying degrees of success, tend to be either relatively complex in design and construction, making such devices relatively expensive to procure and thus less desirable to the potential advertiser, or such prior art devices make it relatively difficult to change the stimulus used to attract the attention of the prospective client to the presence of the business's advertisement material. As many businesses may desire frequently changes to the attraction stimulus in order to stay fresh and to try new advertising approaches, and as many companies in the advertisement business may want to rotate a particular advertising setup through more than one business, such difficulty in stimulus exchange is a negative mark on such systems.
Therefore, there exists a need in the art for a device that allows a business to distribute advertising materials, such as brochures and business cards, to a prospective client at a point of contact where such clients tend to be found, which device overcomes the above stated problems found in the art. Specifically, such a device must be of relatively simple design and construction so that it is not unusually expensive to manufacture and procure. Additionally, such a device must allow for the business to be able to provide a stimulus on the device, which stimulus is designed to grab the attention of the prospective client so that the client takes some of the advertising material. The device must allow for easy and rapid change of such stimulus.